


Said the Spider to the...

by junko



Series: 'Tails' of Zabimaru [18]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 17:30:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renji's return to Academy after his weekend adventures is off to a rocky start...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Said the Spider to the...

**Author's Note:**

> OMG. So sorry for posting this as part of the wrong series. Now updated to show the correct spot!

The dojo at the Academy was Renji’s favorite place in the whole world, second only to the library. The hall was huge. Expansive roughhewn timber beamed ceilings stretched at least twenty feet high. Maple wood columns framed the white plaster walls. Big windows let in natural light and cast long stips of sunlight and dancing dust motes. Careful calligraphy had been framed at the main entrance which read, “To mold the mind and body./To cultivate a vigorous spirit./And to forever pursue the perfection of oneself.” 

Renji thought about that, and how nice the padding under the tatami felt, while he lay on the floor, his ears still ringing from the crack of the wooden practice sword. Kira edged closer and looked down at Renji with worried eyes. Renji could see him fighting the urge to say he was sorry. Sensei would have Kira’s hide if he started babbling apologies like usual.

“What the hell are you still doing down there, Abarai?” Sensei barked.

Renji tried to find his feet. After all, he hated disappointing the Zanjutsu instructor. He’d long harbored a secret crush on her, since his freshman year. She was tiny, not terribly much taller than Rukia. She’d been born inside the Seireitei and so had the porcelain skin and delicate features of a noble. Normally, she kept her bright blond hair bound up tightly in a series of complicated braids, but the onetime Renji saw it down it flowed nearly to her calves. Delicate as a petal--

\--but, totally badass. 

In Renji’s mind, that combination was super-hot.

Once he was standing, she smacked him hard upside the head, and said, “Why are you grinning like an idiot? Are you still spaced out? Did someone finally knock something loose in that thick head of yours?”

“No, ma’am,” Renji said, taking up the stance again. Kira looked extra worried, clearly fearing retribution. But, Renji had no intention of going hardcore on Kira. In fact, for once, he’d been really happy to get paired up with Kira because it meant he could keep experimenting. 

He’d been trying to call Zabimaru.

His theory was—if adrenaline had done it before, when he and Captain Kyōraku had been attacked by bandits, maybe physical exertion could, too. So far, however, the concentration it took to try to summon the zanpaktō left Renji’s guard down. And, Kira wasn’t nearly as timid a fighter as he used to be. 

Plus, Renji was beginning to think Zabimaru had better taste. No way he’d materialize into this nicked and battered bokken. He’d want an asauchi, at the very least. So Renji gave up trying with a sigh and focused, instead, on reclaiming his reputation in the sparring ring.

#

Renji was putting away his practice sword when the sensei called him over. “What happened to you out there? Kira’s not usually in your league.”

That wasn’t fair. Kira had been really growing in zanjutsu the last few years, but Renji knew better than to try to argue with the sensei about class rank. “I was preoccupied, ma’am,” he admitted.

“Ah,” she gave him a little nudge, “Still pining after that girl you went to see this weekend?”

“Uh, no, not really,” Renji rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to blush. “Anyway, the weekend was a bit of a bust, ma’am. I got kicked out of the Seireitei by her protective older brother.”

“Oh, my, my,” she laughed. “Well, that will happen with older brothers. Get your head together, Abarai. I was thinking having you tutor some freshmen this year, but I can’t do that if you can’t remember basic moves like thrust and parry. You don’t make a good role-model on flat on your back.”

“I know. Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “It’s just… I’m trying to do something and it keeps messing me up.”

Her hands rested on her narrow hips. “What are you trying to do? Because it looks to me like you’re trying to get your head knocked in.”

Could he tell her? “Are we going be using live blades this year?”

“Not if you can’t remember to duck. A live blade would take your head clean off,” she muttered. “But, yeah, I was planning on teaching sword form with asauchi next semester. Why?”

“So you have some here? Asauchi, that is? Do you think I could start practicing early?”

She eyed him suspiciously now. “Why are you so desperate to get your hands on one of those empty blades, Abarai?”

Something about the way she was looking up at him, made him just shrug and say, “I’m just anxious to advance.”

She was giving him a knowing smile now. “Ha! It *is* that girl. She’s already in the guard, isn’t she?” When Renji nodded—it was true, after all, the sensei gave him a matronly pat on the arm. “Okay, listen, I’ve got some extra chores you can do around here. You make time for those, and I’ll give you a private lesson and get you started.” 

“Oh! Thank you, ma’am,” Renji bowed deeply. “Thank you very much.”

#

The trouble was finding the time. Renji was already stretched thin. Besides his full load, he had the advance/elite courses, as well as the reading and writing tutoring sessions. On odd evenings, Kira had been giving him extra kidō instruction, so he might have a chance of passing that class finally. In exchange, he’d been helping Kira with the zanpaktō classes. Plus, whenever he could, Renji picked up a couple of shifts in the kitchens and with the grounds crew in order to have some beer money. And, on top of all that, he was still working off detention with Nakamura, the zanpaktō theory instructor. 

Renji sighed. Maybe he could drop a work study shift or give up some weekend time. 

“You wouldn’t think one ‘fuck that shit’ would be worth a whole semester,” Renji grumbled to himself as he made his way down the hall to the instructor’s cramped office, “Especially since I’m acing his class.”

Still, Renji had come back from this weekend with a lot of questions. Nakamura had been willing to talk about zanpaktō a bit more now that Renji had proven to be both knowledgeable and genuinely interested.

After he knocked and Nakamura told him he could enter, Renji started with, “I’m sorry I’m a little late, sir. My zanjutsu instructor held me back.”

“Oh? Nakamura looked up from his small desk at that. Surrounded by all the books, Nakamura always looked as though he were buried deep in a nest of papers. Kuroi no Kumo, Nakamura’s zanpaktō, rested as she always did on her sword rack. Her scabbard glittered an almost iridescent black, like the carapace of an insect. “Getting yourself in trouble with another teacher, are you, Abarai?”

“No, sir,” Renji said, coming in to stand in front of Nakamura’s desk to await whatever duties he’d be assigned. “Zanjutsu is my best class. I was just off my game a little and sensei wanted to know why.”

Nakamura was going through a stack of essays on his desk, and he returned the one he was reading to the pile in order to give Renji his full attention. “And why was that?”

Renji frowned. He didn’t see how this was really any of Nakamura’s business. Still, it was part of what he’d wanted to talk to Nakamura about. He rubbed the back of his neck, and then shrugged. “Well, I was trying to manifest Zabimaru.”

Nakamura had been taking a sip of tea and nearly spewed it across the room. “What? What on earth gave you the idea you could do something like that?”

“Because I did it already, twice, this weekend,” Renji said, looking at the palm of his hand, as if hoping the red-ribboned grip and lightning strike guard would materialize. When it didn’t, he dropped his hand to his side again. “Once, when Rukia’s older brother pissed me off, and the other time was last night when Captain Kyōraku and I were attacked by bandits on the road.”

After he finished sputtering, Nakamura started blinking rapidly. “That’s impossible.”

Renji didn’t know what to say to that. At least he managed to stifle the impulse to say, ‘bullshit.’ And, anyway, obviously, it was. 

“No,” Nakamura said, his eyes snapping up angrily. “You must be lying. There’s no way someone like you could be that advanced. You’re only a student, and you’re not even remotely well-breed.”

Renji held his tongue, though he could feel his temper vibrating behind his eyes, making them twitch. Besides, he reminded himself taking a deep breath, nothing Nakamura said wasn’t true. Renji was only a junior, and he was pretty much the furthest thing from a noble. At that, curiosity briefly overwhelmed his anger, and Renji asked, “So, wait, is that really important for this skill? That I come from a good family? Are you saying there’s something about being born inside the walls that makes you more attuned to your zanpaktō? That’s not in the textbook, is it?”

“No, nor will it be on the test,” Nakamura said sarcastically. “But, in my experience, social class makes a huge difference. You understand, of course, that the souls born inside the Seireitei do so because they’ve reached a certain maturity level; they no longer need to experience death and rebirth to achieve understanding.”

“So, what? You're saying they’re smarter?”

“More mature… like cheese or a fine wine, aged to perfection,” Nakamura said. “You people who come from the Rukongai are a step below on that evolutionary ladder. You didn’t learn what you needed to in your last life, so you’re really not meant for more than a quick recycle.

"Oh.” Renji said, clenching his fists to keep from leaping over the desk. “So I guess I just forgot to lie down in die in Inuzuri, huh? And, all my friends—the ones who suffered and died--that was just them jumping back on the great karmic carnival ride? What the hell was I thinking surviving all this time, when I could be back evolving into some fucking prince?”

“I’m sorry you don’t like the idea, Mr. Abarai,” Nakamura said. “But there’s a reason we in the Seireitei don’t bother to alleviate the suffering of those on the other side of the wall. Your lives are meant to be bitter, short, and over quickly, so that you will have the opportunity to die and be reborn with a better understanding of what it means to be human.”

“Says the spider,” Renji snarled, “To the demon.”

Renji’s reistsu flared around him so strongly that he could almost see it. Its vibrations shook the room so much that books began to fall off the shelves. He was surrounded in a pink-white haze, and Renji sensed it taking the shape of a baboon-headed animal, resting on its powerful forearms, while a snake tail slashed angrily behind him.

In this state, Renji could also better see the black spider that was, Kuroi no Kumo. She appeared like a spider made of black smoke. Her long legs were mostly curled under her, but two front legs stretched down from where she hung to rest on Nakamura’s shoulders. Red eyes glinted intelligently at Renji, ever watchful.

She was powerful, but she was… rusty. No one had called her name in so long. She was still close to her wielder, but something had grown stale between them. 

“You know what I meant,” Nakamura said, standing up. Through Zabimaru’s eyes, Renji could see how Nakamura needed Kuroi no Kumo’s support to stand up under the pressure of Renji’s reistsu. “Stand down, cadet.”

Stand down? Renji looked at his fisted hand. Sure enough, there Zabimaru was again. Only this time, Renji saw more than just a naked katana-shaped blade, he could also see a pink overlay of a larger jagged toothed blade. Renji smiled wickedly at Nakamura, “I guess I’m more evolved than you figured, huh?”

Nakamura had the sense to pale a little and say, “It seems so.”

The sound of feet rushing down the hall and people shouting alerted Renji to the fact that his blast of reistsu was felt at some distance. But, his anger was starting to fade anyway. The first thing to slip away was the demon-shaped bubble of spiritual pressure. Renji felt that collapse back inside him neatly, like the folds of origami. The phantom image around Zabimaru faded next, disappearing like wisps of pink smoke. Zabimaru himself stayed solid, however.

 _We were reborn to fight_ , a deep growling voice said.

 _You were reborn to fight,_ a second hissing voice agreed.

 _Together, we will ‘evolve’ far beyond this insect,_ the deeper voice said, just as the sensei’s door burst open. _The only limit is what we put on ourselves._

“What’s going on here?” an instructor from down the hall demanded of Renji. “Drop your weapon, cadet.”

Renji did, knowing that Zabimaru would be gone before he hit the floor.


End file.
